


Look back...

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Double Pride Double Trouble - series [11]
Category: Das doppelte Lottchen | Lottie and Lisa - Erich Kästner, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Engagement, F/M, Slice of Life, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25490749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: Mina, thinking about Christmas, Teddy and the engagement.
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy, OC - Mina Bennet/OC - Teddy Strickland
Series: Double Pride Double Trouble - series [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1273559
Kudos: 14





	Look back...

**Author's Note:**

> It's one of these stories that don't move anything forward really, but gives you insight into what is running through Mina's head.  
> From now on, there will be a set of "Look forward" stories, Year 1-5 and a few scattered followups.

She stretched on her back, looking at the ceiling of her little window nook, wrapped warmly in the fluffiest blanket from her collection. The one that still retained some ghost of Teddy's cologne. They had, after all, spent more than enough time wrapped in these blankets, after the snow hit.

Because the snow _had_ hit. And 'hit' was the only adequate verb. In the year 2022, after several years subsequently tagged as "the warmest winter since WWII" or "the hottest summer since 1902", the winter came with a vengeance, catching Europe unprepared. It started in November, with chills, freezes and sudden short warmings (leading to a number of accidents due to slippery surfaces) then went to chilly and windy and was culminated with the White Christmas From Hell. In England, the whiteout started early in the morning on the twenty-second of December, cutting off the power from large rural areas of the country, grounding flights and stopping most public transport due to complete and utter lack of preparedness on the side of the local councils.

That is, in most places.

####

_She was in bed, covered as much as she could, and somehow still shaking with cold. And there was someone knocking on her door. And walking in._

_"Kitten? There has been a snowstorm during the night and the power is out. Downstairs is slowly getting quite warm, but it will take a while for the rooms here to get livable."_

_Mom was standing over her bed with a large sweatshirt._

_"Dress in layers," she sighed. "We're making breakfast for the boys."_

_"W-what?"_

_"Your Dad and Teddy went out to shovel the way to the barns and check on the horses," she explained as Mina started to unbutton her pyjamas top. "No, just put it on, we are all in sweats anyway. I don't think your fiance will mind you wearing something more warm than elegant."_

_"What are they doing?" Mina managed to ask as she pulled her shapeless hoodie on._

_"Dad wants to fire up that little snowplough he keeps in the shed, they'll use it to clear out the drives and up to the road. Maybe up to the junction, too, if it works well enough. Brian and the estate staff are working on getting the main walks around the big house cleared and securing the unused buildings. There is already someone on the roof, knocking the snow down, just in case."_

_She could expect some trouble, but then, if Dad and Teddy were bonding over physical exercise..._

_"And your father is not going to haze or bully Teddy," Mom added suddenly, as if reading her thoughts, "he said he and Richard had done enough of that already, so you are not to worry about him. He's quite safe from Dad at least. Although we can't be sure what Richard will do, obviously."_

_She did worry._

_Just a bit._

_But for now it was time to get to the kitchen and get the day started._

_Indeed, the corridor upstairs was cold enough for her to feel it despite thick socks and slippers, but downstairs, with the fireplace going full blast and various things cooking in the kitchen on the rarely used gas range, it was toasty warm._

_"Rose woke up at four or something like that, saw the snow and came here and set up the fireplace, so we have some warm water and the floor is not icy cold," Mom explained, checking the battery indicator on the rarely used solar-powered lamp she had hung over the kitchen table. "Now, I think it's not getting any brighter outside, and this lamp is not going to last much longer, so I'll start the backup and you make several pots of tea, then maybe some porridge, hm?"_

_This was how Mina found herself, in the eerie grey winter morning light, making a pot of oatmeal porridge, and then a pot of some rather thick cocoa, and then at the table, preparing things for lunch, just to give herself something to do._

_The lights flickered on, making her blink._

_"Emergency power supply from the backup batteries," Mom informed them happily, emerging from the basement, dusting herself off. "It's been some time since the last properly sunny day, but as we haven't been using it, this should give us at least enough power for the lamps until they restore the line from Lambton. Don't run any of the appliances, though, they'll eat up the reserve."_

_"I'll go shut down all the lights left upstairs," Rose volunteered._

_"Done it already, no worries. And computers and chargers are unplugged, too, so all we have is the landline phone and whatever battery charge we had on the laptops and mobiles, mind you. Oh, they are coming back!"_

_Indeed, Dad and Teddy were driving towards the house on the little tractor that had been long before set up as a home-made snowplough._

_"I'll fetch some towels for them," Mina offered. "They'd want to take a shower after that work."_

_They did. Teddy took the side bathroom just off from the kitchen, while Dad used the one adjacent to Mrs Reynolds' room (their dear old housekeeper was luckily spending Christmas with her niece's family in Swindon). Due to Rose's morning resourcefulness, there was just enough warm water from the tank heated by the fireplace for the two men to get a chance to wash and still leave some for the dishes._

_Rose went to fetch the textbook she had left in her bedroom and came back with the report that upstairs was slowly getting warmer, but not yet pleasant enough for prolonged human use._

_"We'll camp out down here," Dad decided, towelling his hair dry. "We can bring in the mattresses and set them up close enough to the fireplace for everyone to be warm."_

_"I'll call my father," Teddy said morosely, stringing his towels on the fold-out drying rack Mina had pulled out from the closet and set up in a warm corner of the kitchen. "Ask him if they could fetch me from some point on the road near Lambton, if you could drop me off later today."_

_They had hoped to only send him to his family on Saturday morning, but with the situation—_

_He sank down on the sofa and she cuddled closer into his side with an unhappy sigh._

####

Teddy ended up staying until the New Year, because while Lambton council did have a snowplough and a plan for efficiently cleaning the main roads, not every town had had the same kind of foresight, and Teddy's dad declared it wasn't safe to drive on roads that were _that_ badly maintained, if it wasn't an emergency.

(It also meant Teddy's parents and Theresa were stuck with his grandma for the duration, which was a much less pleasant way to spend the entire holiday season than what Teddy was experiencing, in Mina's opinion.)

They did, in fact, all decamp to the living room, folding out the sofa for Mom and Dad and arranging the mattresses to everyone's comfort (and her parents' peace of mind) - with Mina and Rose side by side and Teddy across from them, just close enough for the two of them to hold hands.

Having Teddy there every morning, all soft and rumpled and bleary-eyed - helping with breakfast and washing the dishes and fetching the logs for the fireplace - was like a little bit of a fairytale.

Of course watching Teddy and Dad eye each other with caution as they split the logs out there, in the cold, stripped to their shirts, had its own kind of appeal. At least they were bonding.

Somewhat.

And now, even with Teddy gone back to the university, she still felt _warm_ inside.

Because before he left, they had all these moments in between - alone and not necessarily so - that they'd spent in as much close physical contact as it was logistically possible.

####

_"So," Mom pointed at Teddy with a long spoon she used to scrape out honey from the big jar, and flicked some on Mina's plate, "whoops, sorry, kitten. So, Teddy. I know it will sound like a classic case of parental interrogation, but I really want to know what your plans are."_

_"For right now? Or," he shrugged, "for life?"_

_"Let's say— five years."_

_"Having my master's degree and engineering certificate and, most probably, being a Lieutenant," he answered immediately. Then blinked, looked at his plate and swallowed some tea. "I hope **not** to be stationed in some very remote place, but then, based on initial information from the colonel who was introducing us to the base, they are rushing several groups, all kinds of specialisation, med school and so on, to get us into active service earlier. They changed the normal tracks and the way it was all set up, to get us more training in parallel— Mostly due to how much military-supported humanitarian relief is needed all around the world. So I may end up most anywhere—" he caught Mina's hand and squeezed. "It might be building wells in, in Kenya, or— basically anything else."_

_"And that will be how long?"_

_"My contract, for now, is five years, but this has to be clarified, considering the training was supposed to take at least a year of that. They may actually count me as being on active duty during the last year at uni. I have a meeting with the Army Bursar office on the tenth. They will be walking us through the new terms and conditions. There are still people who may want to go with the old route, but I— I want to start actually working as soon as possible. I need to have my certificate to actually work construction, but if I can start working as an officer actively at the same time, it would be— I'd feel more useful."_

_"If you want to—" Dad started slowly, "If you want to talk to Richard, just to clarify any kind of— of doubts or uncertainty—"_

_"Dad."_

_"Kitten, I'm not trying to get Richard to terrorise him, but he may have some insight into how it's changing and what is coming."_

_"I wouldn't want to have any kind of unofficial information or—"_

_Uh-oh. Teddy was frowning._

_"I'm sure Richard would not share anything that would be less than official, but he may have some explanations regarding reasoning behind this or that decision or might be able to go in-depth into what is being discussed now—"_

_She squeezed Teddy's hand lightly._

_"Maybe it would make sense?" she nudged his shoulder lightly. "At least he'd tell you all of this earlier than you'd hear it from the Bursar's office— and you'd be prepared. I mean— it's better to know than not to know, right?"_

####

Teddy had agreed and Uncle Richard had arrived for Dad's birthday, when the "midwinter transport catastrophe" was already cleared out and Teddy came for lunch-and-discussion ( _sans_ threatening, Uncle Richard had promised not to glower, but there was still no guessing what he would do once he learnt about the engagement...) on Saturday. He ended up staying until quite late in the evening, going over his plans and the changes in the training schedules that Uncle Richard knew about or was expected to provide insight into and comparing the options he had, based on the documentation he had been given before his break.

She sighed and dragged her finger through the condensation gathered on the windowpane.

It had been— Well, sobering.

The options that Teddy was given, of various timings of training courses, were carefully taken apart and considered in the context of his thesis and just plain reason. Uncle Richard had been most adamant that Teddy should not take the shortest timeline they'd offer, since that would affect his ability to study and have any semblance of social life. In the end, they made a draft of carefully spaced-out coursework that would not delay Teddy's master thesis but let him also finish the officer training in time with the same group.

####

_"And you need to take summers off. That's non-negotiable," Uncle Richard tapped the pencil he was holding on the thick notepad Teddy kept as his main schedule organiser. "I know you, Teddy. I've seen guys like you, who took all the possible courses anytime they could, to just take the pressure off the next semester, or get additional credit. I can tell you already, it never works. Yes, if you need to catch up on something or you had problems during the year, by all means, make up for it, but don't fill your whole summer with unnecessary lessons ahead of schedule. Stick to this. Well, unless it's a thesis-related project and is time sensitive."_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"And don't let anyone manipulate you into taking any random summer job. The Army is paying for your costs and board, and allowance, so unless you have some fanciful expenses I don't even want to know about, there is no reason for you to work yourself to death. You. Need. Time. Off. With one more exception, that is. Since the Army is also serving as your internship, when you get an offer to spend an additional month of training on the base, you take it. But nothing less important."_

_"Yes, sir. But—"_

_Mina saw Teddy's eyes flickering towards her, so she smiled and leaned closer, watching Uncle Richard's eyes widen just a bit at that._

_"Teddy— If you just come home and we can— go for a ride, or take off for a day or two, it will be quite enough. I will be busy all summer this year, remember. The house is there, and it still needs attention, and the harvest, and—" she shrugged, making a wide gesture. "And everything. And I will need someone reminding me when the weekend starts, so. You know."_

_"Weekends?" he raised an eyebrow. "What would you say about a bike trip—"_

_"I'm saying no, but I don't suppose anyone would be listening," Uncle Richard grumbled._

_"Well, no. I mean, yes, a bike trip or two will be nice," she leaned closer and pressed a kiss into Teddy's smooth cheek. "And then we'll see what we can think of for the other weekends. We can't just go gallivanting across the countryside on your bike all the time, Mister Strickland."_

_"Why not, Miss Darcy?" he hugged her closer. "That sounds like a very nice summer."_

_"Not a very ecological one," she pointed out. "Anyway, it's still a lot of time—"_

_"We could take a train."_

_"Trains are nice," she agreed. "You can relax and not have to focus on the road."_

_"Where would you like to go?"_

_Mina shrugged._

_"Further north? Scotland?"_

_"Gretna Green?" Rose giggled._

_"Rosalinde Georgette Darcy!"_

_Uncle Richard frowned._

_Caught her hand._

_Squinted at the ring._

_"Do you two have anything to tell me...?"_

_Teddy grimaced and tried for an innocent smile._

_(missed)_

_"Teddy proposed," she said quickly, before the situation escalated. "And we're engaged!"_

####

It had been a weird weekend. Uncle Richard made a lot of gruff noises about the whole engagement business (even though they repeatedly said they were _not_ getting married right away!) but he still seemed happier about it than Teddy's parents were.

Because that happened.

While back at the beginning, even with all the detentions and identity mix-ups at school, being the "girl who saved Theresa from the bully" was something of an accolade, it later turned—

Well, Teddy's mother liked Mina as Theresa's saviour, but after the scarf incident, and then with Teddy spending so much more time on vocal training than ever before (as in, more than zero) and staying longer at school because of Mina (not because of any more detentions! just— waiting for her) Mrs Strickland was less and less happy with Mina. When Teddy finally, after saving for a year from a variety of small jobs he took, bought his beloved bike, it was practically a given that she would be blamed, even though Mina herself was very much not a fan of the machine and would not come near it, not to mention sit on it, for over a year after the purchase.

Still, Mrs Strickland was convinced it was all because of Mina. Somehow.

She had nothing against Mina as such, and she never came clean and said that she thought Mina was a bad influence, but she did occasionally make a remark or two that kind of— Just weren't so.

And it seemed what she had to say about the whole Christmas situation was even worse.

####

_"And when I told her about the engagement, she went supernova," Teddy groaned, face pressed into Mina's blanket-covered stomach. "I just said we were discussing university and so on, and that we want to factor in a wedding at some point, and she just laughed 'first you have to propose', and I just said 'well, I did' and—" the rest was lost to a grumble._

_She carded her fingers through his hair - now long enough to show the tiniest amount of curl - and patted his shoulder._

_"We are not getting married yet, and it's not like an engagement is already half-like-a-marriage, like it was in the Victorian times or whatever. Why is she so— so nervous?"_

_"I have no idea! She's just been—"_

_"You two OK?" Rose tapped on the door frame. "Fair warning, Mom's in the kitchen, trying to fry doughnuts and not get the house burnt down, but in case you smell smoke, run. Anyway, what are these sounds of woe?"_

_"Teddy's mom is against our engagement."_

_"What is she, from the nineteenth century? I mean, seriously, you two are so well-behaved and correct and— Even now you are cuddling with a blanket between you!"_

_"I was covered with it when Teddy came in and just collapsed," Mina rolled her eyes. "You were saying?"_

_"I mean, you're grownups, you've got a job with Dad, and it's one that will actually pay better than many others, and once this big soldier boy here starts getting more money than he has to pay for his school, you'd both be set to live independently. You don't even have to get married. I mean, not everyone does it, yeah? They just— move in together and get on with their lives."_

_"But— I want to get married," Mina sighed. "I mean, at some point? I **like** the idea of being married to Teddy. Not now, now it would be silly - it would make no sense, since we're half a country apart, and just— I can't even explain it. But it just feels right? To be planning it?"_

_"You are so upright and proper I could hurl if I didn't love both of you so much. Anyway. Teddy, tell your mom that it's better than other options and— well, basically, you've mostly moved out, right? You are earning money with the Army, more or less, or they pay your costs and a stipend. You're not dependent on your parents' support."_

_"They are still my parents," he sighed, rolling to lie flat on his back and look at Rose. "And I'd rather have their— I don't need their approval, or their blessing, technically speaking, but I would like to be able to say they don't dismiss my choices as driven by 'childish understanding of commitment'. Or, even worse, treat it as a result of, wait for it, I quote, 'an adolescent hormonal storm'."_

_Ouch._

_Rose cringed, visibly._

_"Seriously, though, it's not like the two of you got married on the sly or something. And, looking at you, I'm guessing you also haven't done **other** things parents may disapprove of."_

_Mina felt heat crawling up her cheeks._

_"You're not helping, Rose," she pointed out finally._

####

Irene Strickland had finally called Mom and had Things To Say.

Mom, at her (accidentally) most sarcastic, asked whether she'd prefer Mina and Teddy to be engaged, as they were, or if she wished they were more modern in their approach and simply moved into one of the cottages on the estate and started living together, just like that. Because she did see this as a realistic option (or at least she claimed so).

The upside was that Teddy's mother stopped complaining.

The downside was that Dad had started watching the two of them more attentively, making Teddy nervous during the last week of his break.

Which was now done and passed, and Teddy was already in his dorm room and Mina— Mina looked down at the laptop she was holding, an empty e-mail opened and taunting her with its blinking cursor.

It was time to send the explanation to the students' office, get signoffs on the financial side of her studies, collect documentation of credits she had earned and—

Get to work.

Now that she had her shiny new contract as a half-time employee, starting on sixteenth of January as an "executive assistant" at DBT and a second one, also half-time, as an "assistant property manager" at Pemberley Estates.

Both of them boiled down to "whatever Dad needed her to do because he couldn't be there", but it was anyway what she had already been doing—

####

_"I really should have drawn a proper work contract for you long before," Dad rubbed the spot where his glasses had left a mark on his nose. "But I think we've gone so fluidly from all of us just doing things around the house, taking calls, answering questions and so on, to it being mostly the two of us, that I never noticed - well, not until we set up the juice press."_

_"But we agreed that we'd do the full account on that once we close the year, and we'll calculate the income based on that."_

_"Yes, but you have that contract with the estate anyway," he pointed out. "And you were getting paid already, just what, twenty per cent of an FTE?"_

_"Well, yes—"_

_"But for what you were doing at the house, we never—"_

_"But it's— It's home. I mean— Who gets paid for—" she made a frustrated gesture. "Who gets paid to take care of their own house?"_

_"Well, we do. I mean, as an owner of the estate, I'm in a different position - it's the same as the owner of the company, in fact, or a majority stockholder in something, I suppose, but I have a managerial contract that lists my duties, responsibilities and revenue, strictly dependent on the financial result of a particular year."_

_She bit her lip and chewed on it for a moment._

_It still felt unnatural._

_"Do you know how much I'd have to pay for a full-time manager, one that comes guaranteed to be deeply invested, passionate and dutiful?"_

_Mina shrugged._

_Dad turned his computer screen to her and pointed at a position in a spreadsheet._

_"No way," she breathed._

_"This is the saving we accidentally made, per month, because you just— did stuff, dealt with the workers an so on, instead of them all coming to me."_

_"B-But I bothered you! A lot! Called about things, asked all the time—!"_

_"But once you knew, you applied this and followed up. Apart from these few idiots who tried to be too smart and cheat you, you dealt with nearly everything neatly and properly. And you weren't even doing it half time, but it was still enough to free me to deal with other things. So, what we will do—" he clicked a few times with the mouse. "See. We classify that last year of your high school as gaining on-the-job experience. Which counts the same as internship, training and what not. And before you object and even think about favouritism or nepotism, many people do that in their relatives' firms and offices, whatever they might be. For free or for small wages, but, really, there are a bunch of 'apprentice' and 'support' positions sprouting all over the place, come summer, to give someone's kid or nephew the needed experience."_

_She closed her mouth with a snap._

_"Actually, Stacy nearly brained me with the printout of her summary of your tasks, neatly rolled up for a better impact," Dad massaged the back of his head with a small smile. "Remind me to never annoy a lawyer again, they are lethal. She was very unhappy with me about the summer, but—"_

_"I never even noticed any difference," she admitted. "Back then, my second autumn here, after Uncle Richard's wedding, and with Alex— we were still finishing this house, and we all pitched in, well, except for Mom, obviously, but we wanted to have it done soonest. So Rose and I just— did things. I remember answering a myriad of questions about the bathroom stuff and just going at it from our written plans."_

_"Where was I at the time?" Dad frowned._

_"Mostly dealing with the ditches and road drainage? And arguing at the county office about the correct separation of land plots? And we had the bathrooms and the kitchen drawn out in detail, because I did that thing in that 3D software you found for me? So yeah, that was easy peasy, and Jonathan mostly needed answers like 'should this line of tiles end in blue or in green, because we have two versions', which he didn't really need your immediate conformation for."_

_"And the next year—" he sighed._

_"Next year we were all helping with the harvest, together with other girls. I have these photos of Adele picking apples and Jackie pitting cherries? And we were drowning in the blackberries that Nat and Aggie had picked. We had packed Uncle Ted's car so full of jars he was afraid to speed up in case there were bumps on the road."_

_"Which normalised farm work and child labour."_

_"Dad. We were picking fruit. The other option was to sit around and watch sadly as wasps ate everything. It was anyway better than the next one..."_

_Because in 2020 it had been just the five of them, no aunts, uncles or little cousins visiting. And they managed, working with the farmhands and estate staff and whoever else could be hired - and work had already been started on the main mansion house, so Mina served as a point of contact - in her mask and gloves and carrying that huge bottle of sanitiser everywhere—_

_"That was ugly. And yeah, we just more or less repeated the pattern over the next two years."_

_"Because all kids of farmers help out."_

_"Yes, but you two, my dear, are not just kids of a farmer. We are not living off our land, not directly, so it's not like an extension of tending to the family vegetable patch. We sell, we provide services, we are an actual firm. And people who work in it get paid. So I'm having an internship document prepared for Rose, too, by the way. She wasn't working at the house, but she did the work in the gardens, with the flower study people and set up the new trellis walls for grapevines. Let's make sure this counts somewhat to the working hours she's supposed to have on record."_

####

The salary she'd be getting from these two contracts was not the same as Dad had told her an experienced estate manager would get, since her position was that of an assistant and a junior one, to boot. She'd have to get used to office procedures, to learn to navigate details like paid leave and HR stuff and—

She pulled the blanket tighter around herself and tried to focus.

She was living with her parents, in the house her father had built especially for _them_ , working in the possibly best place on Earth, getting paid for doing exactly what she loved most.

And she was engaged. To Teddy.

Teddy.

She clenched her left hand, just to feel the heft of the ring there.

Three more weeks until she saw him again.


End file.
